All: this is a particularly information-rich and thoughtful essay which deserves better than its generic hot-topic title. HN has had dozens of generic WfH threads in the last year (actually, in every year). This deserves better, so please take some time to read and consider and comment on specific insights or details in the OP, and try to avoid generic "WfH: Yay vs. Boo".
I wrote a booklet[0] about being thrown into remote work, and as I gathered, really the only objections are the likes of this article, something along the lines of "We had this good thing in the office and now we don't have it therefore we need the office".
They all fail to use the important lesson Henry Hazlitt thought us:
> The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
Looking at the direct effects of being in or out of the office is very naive. They go further than that.
it differentiates three key aspects of work: the continuous information exchange, the atmosphere of in-person gatherings and the value of seeing beyond the personal scope.
in my personal experience in FOSS inspired evironments (like a Linux distribution) these can be achieved well with a balanced mix of on-site physical collaboration and remote work.
specifically large chat rooms serve as water coolers, or in the article coffee exchanges. mailing lists work well for technical exchange. VCS in combination with the other two works well for disciplined collaboration and preparation of consensus --- or the identification of divergent topics.
and those divergent topics are the ones where physical collaboration shines, with moderator support where needed. TIL about humming and I love it.
in total the first three, group chat water coolers, mailing list style thought exchanges, a disciplined review-enabled document collaboration, reduce the need for and value add of physical in-office presence I dare to claim by an order of magnitude.
agreed, this needs a breed of collaborators who express themselves in writing, chat, mail, documents are _written_. however that can be learned, no?
I hope companies make an informed an balanced decision moving back to the office intelligently.
and on a tangent I hope and pray MS teams gets usable chat rooms, and better threaded message support. Office has collaborative editing, change tracking. a decent group chat is missing, and imnsho that's the life blood of remote.
This piece tells a compelling story. But it throws around enough casual assertions unsupported by evidence that I’m unsure what, if anything to conclude. For example:
> “The Wall Street banks kept more teams in the office, so they seem to have done a lot better than Europeans.” That may have been due to malfunctions on home-based tech platforms. But Beunza attributed it to something else: in-person teams had more incidental information exchange and sense-making, and at times of stress this seemed doubly important.
This phrasing asserts that an observed affect may be due to one of two possible causes. Of course, the author attributes their observations to the phenomenon they are studying. They don’t seem to have considered the possibility that either the American bankers are just better, or that disparate trading returns between banks in a given year might be explained by factors external to the trading team itself. This kind of sloppy reasoning calls the rest of the content into question - if a researcher is willing to make these inferences in one place, they are probably making them elsewhere.
This essay combines a number of guilty pleasures. There's the author, Gillian Tett, who is US editor for the Financial Times, and in an earlier life, a goes-out-on-digs anthropologist. She doesn't get to flex her anthro background often but it's a joy when she does, the piece comes from an upcoming book. She focuses largely on John Seely Brown of Xerox Park, still very much alive despite Dr. Tett's past-tense references, and author of The Social Life of Information (2000, 2017), a hugely illuminating read despite a few glaring holes (like the World Wide Web, apparently invisible to a Xerox careerist at the time). It's one of several reads from the dawn of the Web age which have grown on me. And the question of how work, information, space, and distance combine.
Please do give it a solid read. This isn't just another "remote work vs. offices" screed, not even hardly.
One point that many WFH enthusiasts (I am one) tend to miss (I prove myself the exeption) is that telecommunications actually amplifies the power of locality, in a sort of perverse paradox. The logic operates somewhat akin to Amdahl's law of computer parallelisation, in which the degree of parallelisation is limited by the unparallelisable portion of processing. For remote work, the limiting factor is the obligate localised functions, or the functions in which local access is superior to remote.
Tett's essay addresses several of these, most especially the difficult-to-capture, difficult-to-engineer incidental communications. Water-cooler chats, conversations overheard down the corridor, incidental meetings in tea rooms or canteens or lavatories, car pools, shared lunches. It's why Steve Jobs designed the Pixar studios with a centralised bank of washrooms. Being in a space, crossing paths with people, being familiar with their faces or voices, can be useful.
(It's also often not so, especially where both dissimilar and incompatible activities are placed proximate to one another. But the opportunity exists.)
And in a work environment where all the remote-comms tools are excellent and as good as possible, the temas working in proximity will still have the advantages afforded by localised contact. They'll also benefit from activities which cannot be provided remotely (though those may also substitute for services which might be provided at home or locally to a distributed workforce). Still, though, since Adam Smith and before, the power of cities and concentrations of activity to support a richer, more complex, more nuanced, and more specialised set of activities has been recognised. And telecoms simply cannot answer all of those needs, especially where physical presence of people, equipment, and/or activity are required.
Even if telecoms could do so, it would have to be conscious and aware of the affordances it is being called on to replace, and the role and impace those had on earlier practices.
the essay misses out on the undeniable benefit of uninterrupted work, and it doesn't mention digital similes to the water-cooler, like chat rooms and decent mailing list support. group conversations with little visual noise, like old fashioned irc, like old fashioned mailing lists, are what distributed FOSS engineering communities thrive on.
so the article sees what is missing in remote work, but it's not spelling out what is gained: quiet uninterrupted focus time, with higher productivity.
edit: of course the FOSS community benefits greatly from occasional conferences to work on topics that benefit from a whiteboard, from being in the same room, from humming. and likewise workplace collaboration benefits from occasional deliberate face to face workshops, e.g. to sort out challenging allignment topics
What the article is saying is that there are group benefits to working together and that they speculate that the traders in America did better than the traders in Europe because they worked together.
Most comments I read on Hacker News that say that working from home is better measure a single individual’s output or that of a group that has worked together for a period of time.
There may well be studies that show that WFH is better. It would be good to study this further.
Perhaps it is better in some ways and worse in others. Perhaps it is better for some groups and worse for others. Perhaps certain technologies or processes can shift the balance.
I would hope that this is what we seek to learn. Instead, on Hacker News, you find a lot of agenda pushing. That makes me sad. I hope that we become
more curious and open minded.
I would be interested in knowing how much a WFH preference correlates with how much engineering teams work together.
As I have never worked for an engineering team that did anything other than parcel out work and expect people to go and do it. Yes, there was some pair programming for tough parts and we do architecture together, but as a general rule I don't meaningfully talk to any other engineers for completing my features except maybe to ask 10-20 minutes of questions.
So the "working together" part to me mostly consists of me being in a meeting which is not all that technical and where I don't care what the decision is. I have far more hours sitting in meetings playing on my phone than I have genuinely engaged in collaborative development.
But on the other end you have companies like Pivotal which are 100% paired code writing.
I'd say that if you're an ops/devops/architect, you need to work between 20% and 60% of your time with someone else. If you're a dev, i think roughly 20% is quite enough (unless you only do peer programming).
> Most comments I read on Hacker News that say that working from home is better measure a single individual’s output or that of a group that has worked together for a period of time.
Well, of course people are going to advocate for what works best for them. The workforce has drastically changed and careers are much more in the hands of individuals now. Upper management/HR layers aren't advocating for employees anymore, career paths through a single company is almost a relic. So it's only natural that individuals are wanting whats best for individuals.
I commented on the other thread - which became a generic WFH/office discussion - but one reason it devolved into that is this article isn't any more relevant to the core HN demographic than (say) a factory worker who's forced to go to work together with others every day.
There are 2 specific things it seems to me to bring up: domain knowledge and 'tribal' rituals.
There's no doubt in my mind that domain knowledge-sharing has suffered while I've been WFH: I started a new job during the pandemic, and it's been really hard to pick-up all the unknown-unknowns.
But this is a practical problem that can be overcome with the correct mindset and good tools. Instead of picking-up this essential work information in a discussion by the coffee-brewer, we simply need to be better at documenting what a new employee needs to know; we need to be self-aware of how we share knowledge and how it disseminates in an organization.
In other words, the practical things that the article finds are lacking in WFH can be fixed if we want to.
The other special element is the 'tribal' rituals, the adrenaline and team-spirit. Now even though that's sometimes an element in programming - for instance hackdays - the atmosphere in a bank trading floor is totally separate to 99% of the rest of workers' experience.
Probably a lot of things have changed since the 1990s, but I spent a lot of time with bankers in the City of London around that time (my brother worked at a bar there), and the 'tribal' aspect of these people was obvious in their behavior both in the office and socially. So I'm not at all surprised to hear that they performed differently while working separately in their homes (although I also note the authors don't strictly quantify what they mean by "performed better").
For the record, I'd rather continue to WFH but doubt it will be possible as the 'normal' takes over again.
There are pros and cons to wfh vs office and each individual will weigh them according to what they value more. The pros can be cons to the other group and vice versa.
I hope this topic shift in the right direction and focuses on the steps employers need to take to let employees decide for themselves and ensure equal opportunity regardless of what choice they've taken.
I have my reservations. I see it's problematic the views of modern anthropology espoused in the essay seem relegated to social interactions relegated to a modern conceptual framework which defines "work" and "the workplace", while disregarding how that framework is rooted in a far larger historical context.
If anything, the modern notion of "work" as an employee-employer relationship with the primary goal of securing and sustaining a livelihood on the part of the employee, is barely 250 years old. And it's steeped in ideas and social dynamics which first emerged in the late 18th century which would spark the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution, above all, was a fundamental reorganization of society where economies shifted from localized labor found in tight-knit agrarian communities, towards concentrating labor in centralized industrial centers. This evolution was just as much driven by advances in technology as it was by shifts in modes of mobility, housing, urbanization, finance & banking, supply chains and so on. It also sparked massive migration of people moving from local communities towards these industrial centers. It's also important to note that this first happened in North America and Western Europe during the 19th and 20th century.
This was by far an evolution which happened on equal footing. The centralization of work in factories, workshops, offices,... was mainly driven by capital, and therefore happened at the behest of industrial elites who, during these times, also secured power as financial and political elites.
The notion that in order to secure a livelihood, one has to work in a centralized workplace, could easily be justified since the marketplace - labor, goods, services,... - was by and large based on manual labor, whether it was working textile, coal and iron mining, or other primary industries.
Throughout the 20th century, that changed as work in erstwhile industrialized countries shifted through secondary towards tertiary industries where labor has become predominantly office based. So long as efficient communication between workers was impeded by the lack of technology, the obligation of "coming to the office" could be easily justified.
In that regard, working in a centralized workplace has evolved into a widely accepted and deeply ingrained cultural norm, even though the digital revolution of the late 20th and early 21st century has deprecated any and all economic arguments to physically centralize labor in tertiary industries.
And so, the article, to me at least, seems more or less reaffirming a cultural norm which emerged during the 19th and early 20th century which was established and pushed by industrial elites back in the day, and is still upheld by their present day successors: the centralized workplace is an absolute necessity for organization of society.
The Marxist thinker Anthonio Gramsci coined the term "cultural hegemony" to describe such normative thinking:
> In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class which manipulates the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class. This Marxist analysis of how the ruling capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) establishes and maintains its control was originally developed by the Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937).
(Personally, I have equal reservations in outright applying this term to this discussion, since Marxist thinking is equally shaped by the same changing affordances provided by society over the past 200 years. But I feel it's important to mention it here as this has been recognized and labeled by others as well.)
Barring precarious living conditions of pre-industrial life compared to the modern comforts enjoyed by the last 3 generations in the industrialized world, it's important to note that Humanity by and large lived - and in many parts of the world still lives - in tight-knit communities throughout the vast majority of (pre)history. Strong importance has always been given to familial, tribal or clan like relationships as those defined one's identity throughout life.
In contrast, the Industrial Revolution and the drive to centralize the workforce has driven urbanization from which present day metropoles have emerged. But at the same time, it has also profoundly disrupted how humans interact with each other. Looking at Western European and American culture in the most broadest sense over the past 200 years, you can see a clear shift and how it became permeated by themes of alienation, loss, saudade, discomfort, deep struggle with identity,... as an answer to these profound, disruptive social changes.
And so, the social and economic disruptions of the 19th and 20th century have left a deep legacy. And the specter of that legacy looms large over our present day lives in profound ways we likely haven't yet come to fully comprehend.
Tangentially, I was left thinking about a concrete example: the HR industry and the approach of hiring individuals. The process, at the end of the day, is about figuring out one main question: is the candidate a "good fit" for the organization? What it really implies is this: "Can we put this random person in a group of 5 picked individuals who, in truth, have little in common and let them act together in a manner that creates a benefit for the employer for 8-10 hours a day in a physically limited space?" From my outline, it should be pretty clear that the HR industry is a cottage industry which tries to solve a problem which was artificially created by centralizing labor.
As far as most employees are concerned, their co-workers aren't part of the original social tribe in which they first formed deep social connections: family, friends, clan, peers,... The main thing employees have in common, which drives them to work together, at the end of the day is a labor contract which they signed in order to secure their livelihood.
For sure, I have to add nuance to those statements. Humans are flexible in forming social ties and cooperating in a central physical location isn't in and of itself problematic. In fact, there are as many different, complex contexts as their are humans out there, each living their own life. And plenty of people derive fulfillment, identity and satisfaction from banding and cooperating together. Many people forge profound friendships and relationships in the workplace as well. My expose above doesn't invalidate the psychology at an individual level.
However, it would be rather disingenuous on the part of employers to expect that any and all individuals, without discerning their backgrounds, would willingly, and unquestioning, from the outset attach deep importance to social ties forged in a centralized workplace. Even the veil of anthropology doesn't take away the reductionism behind that view.
For most jobs, I would say working from home is just fine.
But I've also worked on a trading floor.
The difference is that on the trading floor, every interaction is mutexed. You can talk to one person at a time, or you can shout down one line at a time. Someone comes to your desk and they get nothing until the previous conversation ends.
This works because you're mostly happy to delay whatever longer running projects you have on your desk, like fixing a spreadsheet. And because the information coming in on those conversations is high value, requiring immediate decisions.
Most people are not doing things in this way. If you're deep coding, you especially don't want someone to come and bother you. There's not much value in immediate interruption.
How do they use rituals and symbols to forge a common worldview?
I'm real tired of this larger thought that a job is anything but a place where I'm paid to do a task. I'm not there for friends - i already have ample, chosen through decades of careful selection - nor am I there for rituals or world views. I already have those.
Sometimes I feel like lonely/empty people find these things in their job and force it onto the rest of us while singing praises of team building or corp culture/community into their inner void.
Not looking for a job, yet every time recruiters reach out to me on Linkedin I now ask if the role is remote. If they say no I say “sorry, only remote”. I hope more people follow this movement :)
Having tasted 1yr WFH I will never work for a company that doesn't give me autonomy in this area. My current company is letting us choose post-pandemic, and were they ever to backslide I'd vote with my feet and move jobs.
I think the key thing here is choice and being able to adopt a hybrid approach. The same approach doesn't work for all people, teams and companies. Having the power to choose is amazing though and us employees should fight tooth and nail to preserve these rights. Why should jobs that can be done remotely have a mandate attached about where you work on every day of the week? That's incredibly oppressive when you think about it.
I speak to a real mix of people. There are a lot of dimensions in the logic matrix for working from home. Managers who want it or don't want it for either selfish or practical reasons. Employees who want it so they can slack off more (and managers who know that) Employees who want it because they can organise their lives better. Employees who don't want it because they like the separation or don't want it because they get too distracted at home. People who just miss the banter and camaraderie of the office. All these factors are at play in different ways for each individual and each department and each company. I don't feel there's a very clear consensus in any particular direction, except perhaps more people will have the option of WFH in general than before.
I found the vast majority of people prefer complete wfh or a hybrid split in favour of wfh, with occasional trips into the office.
I only have seen about 10% of staff or less wanting the opposite or completely office based work.
Like many have said here, commercial property vendors who have had their heydey now are scared of losing their rent. There are also businesses who rely on lunchtimes but they can always offer delivery. Economics always wins so businesses have to adapt.
It will take years before we have settled on work from home or office. I don't think a mix will exist, either entire team will WFH or WFO.
The good thing is the experiment has started. Many companies are becoming remote friendly. The long term effects of WFH on companies success will determine whether it will be WFH or WFO. Whatever it is the rest of companies will have to adapt to new paradigm.
I prefer the hybrid option but faced with the binary choice I would choose WFH. I'd forego money and even career opportunities for it. As long as I can pay the bills and do reasonably interesting and useful work it will be hard to lure me back. Maybe I'm an outlier but I suspect I'm part of a significant demographic at least.
> I would choose WFH. I'd forego money and even career opportunities for it.
Same. At least when I'm forced into (occasionally multi-)hour-long meetings that have no relevance to me, I can wander about doing chores whilst half-listening rather than being sat in an airless room wondering how I made such bad life choices as to end up there.
It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here.
The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software development will become very remote friendly.
I feel like it is just the concept of the vocal minority. People who are seeing the world go their way tend to just enjoy the ride. People who don't like how it is going tend to be quite vocal about their displeasure. Minority opinions can be quite loud, in any aspect of our society.
Personally, I want to respect our differences. I support people figuring out where they want to work and finding companies who let them do so. We don't all have the same desires, and we should not expect everyone to want the same thing. I do believe that companies will have to support the desires of their workers more than they have in the past, and hopefully that will be well balanced with what people really want.
WFH is an instant 13-20% raise for most people because they're not compensated for the commute. The same economic effect that results in SWEs being paid well above minimum wage will also result in widespread remote work.
If you like socializing you can still do that, in fact you can do more of it since you're not spending an hour or two every day in a car, alone.
I don't know where you live but you should also keep in mind that in many places of the world commuting is done within a metropolitan area, and usually with public transportation (trains, buses, subways etc) so while it still takes away time it's not that catastrophic on the environmental side. And there are people who likes to physically separate their personal life from their work life. And I'm a pre-pandemic remote worker who used to work in the office, and I can see the good and the bad sides of both positions. I don't really understand why WFH enthusiasts are usually so radical on this topic.
> I don't really understand why WFH enthusiasts are usually so radical on this topic.
I venture that it's partially down to years of "NO, WFH would RUIN the business and CATASTROPHISE us into BANKRUPTCY!!!" from businesses when people requested it and ... it turned out to be bullshit, everything pretty much worked ok when everyone was WFH, and people are not minded to let business slip back into their previous bullshit without a fight.
I was at one of those places. The owner,board,Upper mgmt would have a hissy fit (sometimes literally) when anyone requested any sort of work from home condition. Declaring (sometimes screaming) that the business would go under nothing would get done, ect,ect.. They couldn't manage things that way. Even though we would often go months without hearing from any of these aforementioned people.
Then the Thanos *snap happened and one day we all had to be WFH almost overnight. What changed? Literally nothing except better more humane working conditions. Everything got done business is still fine.
> I don't really understand why WFH enthusiasts are usually so radical on this topic.
WFH in general, now? Overton window. It's probably our one and only opportunity to shift it to include WFH as a standard practice in companies. Before, remote opportunities were very scarce, and were mostly tied around contracting. The pandemic briefly normalized WFH, but there's plenty of interests - powerful interests - gearing to get back to office work as soon as legally allowed. WFH enthusiasts try to counter that pressure, in a desperate attempt to make WFH stick.
> you should also keep in mind that in many places of the world commuting is done within a metropolitan area, and usually with public transportation (trains, buses, subways etc) so while it still takes away time it's not that catastrophic on the environmental side
Yeah, but even for the most environmentally conscious, personal time is still the most scarce commodity. Commuting by bus or bicycle is better than by car, but no commute at all is better than any of this. Public transport lets you make partial use of commute time; lack of commute gives you that time back.
And then not having to commute opens up geographical flexibility - you can suddenly work for a company in a different city, or in a different country. This is a well-covered topic, but there's another flip side to it, which makes some WFH people "radical": if their company pulls the plug on WFH now, it'll severely mess up their lives.
Personal example: I've been contracting remotely for a foreign company (started pre-pandemic), and due to various reasons, that contract got turned into FTE in a local company... with offices 400km from where I live. One which didn't, until pandemic, practice remote work. So I'm keenly tracking any and all discussions about work policies, because if they were to return to pre-pandemic policies, I'd have to uproot my life or change jobs. And I don't want to change my job, I really like the team and the work. So you can imagine I'm sensitive about this.
Sure that's the case in most of the world, but in the US you're spending an hour and a half alone in a car unless you've structured your life around avoiding that.
Yes absolutely. Commuting does not automatically cause socializing.
Commuting causes back pain, exhaustion, pollution and lots of traffic. Oh, and traffic accidents. 100% of my 2 traffic accidents were during commuting.
Now if people who want to work from office find themselves in empty office then they need to adapt to this new paradigm shift the same way rest of us adapted to loud open offices where anyone can walk up to anyone and interrupt the flow.
Some people adapt to whatever reality is while others force their responsibility of adaptation on their peers/environment.
This is already an extreme view: why should the office be empty? Unless the company is 2 people, there's a good chance the socialite is not alone, and most people aren't 100% committed in either direction anyway. The solution could be actually trivial: poll the employees preferences, rent a smaller office space, use an online scheduler for office time, there we go.
> It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it
There are enormous economic forces whose interest lies in workers returning to offices and city-centers.
Thinking that journalists and media-sources are immune to this pressure is illusory - they will be talking to 'experts' who are effectively lobbyists, getting press-releases and generally being contacted in their networks by a lot of people who want to push this agenda, so that expensive offices are filled and city-center businesses can begin to sluice our cash again.
I have saved enormous amounts of money by WFH over the last year, enjoy it more than sitting at an office desk all day, had more family-time, private and hobby time, have eaten more healthily and gotten more exercise and (probably most importantly of all), worked with better focus and more effectively.
But I have no doubt that I'll be required to work at the office again at the end of the summer, because the combination of these immovable economic forces, together with the ingrained cultural prejudices of the management class (that prefer the buzz of the office environment), make it an inevitability.
For many, many people the cat is out of the bag. I went through this 5 years ago and couldn't stand being back in the office. I was the rat that escaped the maze. There was no going back for me.
Most people have never in their lives experienced the autonomy and self-direction of WFH. They have been running from obligation to obligation, expectation to expectation with no time to digest or consider if there's a better way. Now, for many people they have lived that better way and they will never go back.
It’s funny because I feel like I’ve been reading article after article recently about how working in offices is dumb and they can’t imagine why anyone would do it anymore unless they were zombified corporate stooges. My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life, and my commute (about 30 minutes, soon to be fifteen or less via public transit once I move) nicely bookends it, separating it off from the rest of my day. I have been dying to go back to the office since April 2020.
I saw a comment in the Apple thread where someone said people who don't like WFH hate their family, or themselves. Which was a shocking comment.
I love spending time with my family and daughter, but I get paid to work to support my family, and working from home makes me feel distracted.
I thought working from home would be the best part of a job, but losing the separation of work/life, going from avoiding meetings to looking forward to them for social interaction with my co-workers, missing the lunch time outings with co-workers, the chit-chat, asking for help or being asked for help.
I've come to really miss working in the office. I was WAY more productive, kept better hours, and coming home from work to family was great.
^ This. Going to the office was my social life, because I'm an expat and the office was full of other geeky expats. I even went to the office when the rest of my team was in another timezone, but I had lost all opportunities for pair programming. When 100% WFH hit, I was talking about maybe 2 days a week in the office being the right balance, but now I'm thinking I could WFH effectively a maximum of 1 day a week.
It's the first / second / third place theorem; first place is your home and family life, second place is the workplace, and third life is leisure and social activities like the pub.
It's a really mixed bag for me. I finally left my previous job, even though I could finally work at HQ (instead of being sent out to customers) after a few years, and it was a very cushy HQ office with really fun colleagues and all that. On the other hand, they didn't have the work that gave me the gratification I wanted from a job.
I got a different job where the work is pretty much perfect, but the office is bad (basic linoleum rent-an-office with bad chairs and ventilation, although I do have my own office). I've been working from home since march last year and I never really feel like I want to go to the office. I might again now that the temperatures are going up, they have AC.
Yeah there's more distractions from the family, but at the same time it means I can do a lot more to look after them - my girlfriend had an appointment yesterday but also a migraine, I was there to take her to it instead of her having to suffer driving or canceling it, for example.
Problem is, many of the reasons people prefer in-office require the rest of us to be in the office. Some are manageable, if you like the social aspect there will be others like that and they can be social together. Others like "better collaboration" really require a decent chunk of your immediate team to be there.
If people who want to work from office find themselves in empty office then they need to adapt to this new paradigm shift the same way rest of us adapted to loud open offices where anyone can walk up to anyone and interrupt the flow.
Some people adapt to whatever reality is while others force their responsibility of adaptation on their peers/environment.
> My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life
This is seems to be pretty common, can you explain why it's so hard to separate?
Generally I start the work day by turning on the work computer, when I'm done I turn it off and anything beyond that is the sort of rare exception I would have logged in from home for even if I was working in the office. That and a couple of other little rituals like switching coffee mugs and wearing pants gives me all the separation I need.
Most of us don't have a separate room for an office, or might be stuck using our own equipment (pc, phone) for our job now, which blurs the lines on home/work.
I set up a `work` account on my laptop which helps to give a distinction because it keeps all of "my" stuff away (although I will confess to logging into HN as me from the `work` account...)
Lacking a distinct room is tricky but I got a little folding desk that's designated as "work" - when it's up, it's work time. Otherwise it goes down the side of the couch/chair.
Not the same as commuting to an office but little things that give a slightly brighter edge between home/work.
But if you could choose permanent work from home would you really work from the same room? In my case, I would ditch my apartment go back to my hometown build a home with a dedicated office.
Moved back to my hometown with above median wage. Still can't afford 3 rooms... So no office for me. Just not realistic in some parts of world. Unless I'm willing to move far away from the town itself(everything is relative, European distances for towns are short).
I wouldn’t choose it because I don’t like it. I’m not going to change a housing situation I like a lot just to make it easier to work from where I live. That’s the opposite of work-life balance, to me.
I don't think it's a conspiracy necessarily, there are people with vested interests in returning to "normal" working conditions and yes they will encourage the view that the economy/society will collapse if we don't all go back full time.
Even when it was plain that a second/third wave was going to hit the UK the government (and elements of the press) were insisting that we should all go back to the office for the good of the economy [0]. Two months later a new lockdown was announced to prevent a "medical and moral disaster".
Indeed I know we shouldn't instigate conspiracy shilling without evidence.
However it does feel that there is an agenda from the Savills of the world to justify office leases with a lot of these fragile reasoning articles coming out.
Of course remote meetings will not have the same 'feeling' as a live meeting the question is do you have the right tooling and processes to achieve the same outcome.
That is something companies need to adapt to, rather than force everyone back to the office.
I think commercial property in the old form is screwed. Nearly every office job type firm is now offering reduced time in the office, with a few standouts still holding on to full time on site. That's my personal survey anyway, having talked to quite a number of them over the last few weeks. You can tell on some hiring managers that they'd really rather have people in the office, but they can see where the market is going.
The number of fully remote firms has gone up, but what's also interesting is that many old firms are allowing half remote. So two or three days in the office, the rest at home. A lot of these types of firms will change the space they need. More fun space, meeting rooms, because that's what you'll be doing on the days in, and less traditional floor.
The other big losers from this are the food and coffee shops in town centre. I went in to chat with some, and it's a bloodbath.
I somehow believe the old firms will simply reduce their rented space, and let you have fun at home. I really feel bad for the coffee shops, it's just a mandatory office presence cannot be based on the interests of some other company :( feels guilty
A lot of people say they enjoy working from home, but I suspect it's more the case that they enjoy things like not feeling watched by managers, or being interrupted as much, or fewer meetings, or being able to work with things like a television on or music with headphones. Those things could be achieved in an office environment with some thought and fewer open-plan spaces.
Even people saying they prefer WFH because they no longer have to commute could be solved with some (huge) infrastructure changes.
What remote working highlights is that there are big problems with offices and that the simplest solution is to work somewhere else. That doesn't mean working from your home the best solution.
A conspiracy? From the independent and free-thinking Guardian? If they have been infiltrated by money-grabbing property ownwers, then there is no hope!
Seriously though. I think that the Covid enforced WFH has shown many people that there are many benefits to at least some form of in-person, workplace-based interaction. Not everyone is a software developer who can just get on with the work with only a laptop.
the owners are mostly banks. And they aren't happy about the haircut for sure. but no matter, at the current rate of money printing everything's tolerable. Not happy, but tolerable hence these little random jabs gauging public opinion.
Edit: I've pinched some language from the text that is more representative of what's different about the article, and put it in the title above. Diffs are what's interesting: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....